St. George and St. Michael eBook

In the eyes of most of his comrades the mare he rode
seemed too light for cavalry work, but she made up
in spirit and quality of muscle for lack of size,
and there was not another about the king to match
in beauty the little black Lady. Sweet-tempered
and gentle although nervous and quick, and endowed
with a rare docility and a faith which supplied courage,
it was clear, while nothing was known of her pedigree,
both from her form and her nature, that she was of
Arab descent. No feeling of unreality in his possession
of her intruding to disturb his satisfaction in her,
Scudamore became very fond of her. Having joined
the army, however, only after the second battle of
Newbury, he had no chance till the following summer
of learning how she bore herself in the field.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Ladyandbishop.

In the meantime a succession of events had contributed
to enhance the influence of Cromwell in the parliament,
and his position and power in the army. He was
now, therefore, more able to put in places of trust
such men as came nearest his own way of thinking, and
amongst the rest Roger Heywood, whom, once brought
into the active service for which modesty had made
him doubt his own fitness, he would not allow to leave
it again, but made colonel of one of his favourite
regiments of horse, with his son as major.

Richard continued to ride Bishop, which became at
length famous for courage, as he had become at once
for ugliness. Fortunately they found that he
had developed friendly feelings towards one of the
mares of the troop, never lashing out when she happened
to be behind him; so they gave her that place, and
were freed from much anxiety. Still the rider
on each side of him had to keep his eyes open, for
every now and then a sudden fury of biting would seize
him, and bring chaos in the regiment for a moment
or two. When his master was made an officer,
the brute’s temptations probably remained the
same, but his opportunities of yielding to them became
considerably fewer.

It was strange company in which Richard rode.
Nearly all were of the independent party in religious
polity, all holding, or imagining they held, the same
or nearly the same tenets. The opinions of most
of them, however, were merely the opinions of the man
to whose influences they had been first and principally
subjected: to say what their belief was, would
be to say what they were, which is deeper judgment
than a man can reach. In Roger Heywood and his
son dwelt a pure love of liberty; the ardent attachment
to liberty which most of the troopers professed, would
have prevented few of them indeed from putting a quaker
in the stocks, or perhaps whipping him, had such an
obnoxious heretic as a quaker been at that time in
existence. In some was the devoutest sense of
personal obligation, and the strongest religious feeling;
in others was nothing but talk, less injurious than